A Ghost With a Lonely Heart
by thunderbird5
Summary: It's hard to be lonely and it's worse when that feeling haunts you everyday like a long forgotten ghost from the past.


Disclaimer: How I wish the boys were mine. But no, they belong to someone else. A huge thanks to my beta Darkflame's Pyre for checking and fixing this up for me.

Happy reading and reviewing guys.

Since I was little I knew that I was different.

I always tried my best to stay out of trouble, to do as I was told. The few times I did, I didn't mean it. I got grounded once for misunderstanding and doing the opposite of what someone told me to do.

I remember it as clear as a bell; like it was yesterday, only I can't recall exactly how I managed it. I was six years old.

As I came out of class, one of the other kids got ahold of my hand and dragged me down the hall and out of our school. You see, us young ones were lucky. Our dorm and school was in one place. The high school was split into both dormitories and the main part of the school.

I remember feeling a bit down and lonely that day. As soon as my feet touched the path outside the safety of the school I knew so well, I felt an overwhelming fear gripping at my little heart.

We were still on the school grounds, officially, but we were heading in an unknown direction. Somewhere I had never been or even heard about. As my friend dragged me along, she explained in a hurried manner that we were going to call someone to come have lunch with us.

Looking this way and that in nervousness, I tried to stop her, tried to make my friend stop for just a moment and tell me where we were going. Who did we have to call? Why did I have to go with her?

My friend had just laughed and just kept on running, dragging me along with her. She paid no attention to my protests. Before I knew it we were standing inside another dorm in front of a teacher. It felt so wrong to stand there amongst all the grown-up kids. Something didn't feel right. It had felt like I was in a dream. This I was a place I didn't know.

I wanted to run away. Run back to the safety of my dorm room. Run to the huge box of toys and play with them and pretend that I was never ever outside the front door. This was dangerous.

Turning on the spot as soon as my friend had given her message I ran towards the doors I knew led the way back to the outside world and safety. But I wasn't quick enough. Before I knew it a hand had pulled me to a stop and a voice hissed at me to stop being such a baby. Feeling my face flush indignantly at that, I turned to say something mean back to my friend when she spotted the trampoline outside in the inner courtyard.

She dragged me over, and after she had forced me up onto it, she started to jump. She gave a few whoops of joy and bounced even harder. I was jouncing up and down every time my friend's feet came crashing down on the hot black trampoline. My eyes were wide with terror. I couldn't grab onto something to stop my body from bouncing around like a ragdoll on a spring.

I started to cry and that got the attention of a teacher, who came running out to see what the commotion was all about. She had made my friend stop and had asked her why I was crying? My friend had told her that I was having fun and that it was my first time on a trampoline. I was too scared to tell the teacher how scared I was. I wanted to go back to our dorm.

My friend had asked the teacher if we could play there for a while. She had never told the teacher that we had to return to the dorm after giving the original message it was intended for. The teacher walked away, not turning back one time to see me scramble to the side of the trampoline, only to be viciously bounced back into the middle.

My hands were on fire along with my legs and feet where they'd rubbed against the hot material. What made things worse was that every time I came into contact with the trampoline, my bare skin would scrape along the hot surface and the burning sensation would get worse and worse.

Finally unable to bear it any longer, I cried out in agony. That finally got through to my friend and she stopped jumping. Looking down she realized what was going on with me. She noticed how red my skin was in places. Moving over to me she helped me up and off the trampoline. My friend knew that now we both would be in big trouble when we got back to our dorm. I had been hurt. My friend also realized that she had been selfish and cruel to me.

I wasn't going to trust her again. She had met my older brothers and knew that they were somewhere on the school grounds and they would kill her if they saw what she had done to me. She didn't look at my face for she knew that she would see my blue eyes full of tears and see them run down my face.

When my feet had touched the ground again, I just crumpled into a heap. I was hot, nauseous, tired, and scared. Pulling me up on my shaky legs my friend told me that she'd take me back to the dorm and explain what had happened. She started to walk slowly along the path back to where it had all started. She was supporting me as much as she could.

How I made it to the front door of the little school, I don't know. The next thing I remember was being upstairs on my bed, crying. We were grounded for the afternoon. I didn't even get treatment for my scraped skin that day. I was told that it should be a good reminder to not do what we did ever again.

It wasn't even my fault. I felt so lonely that day. I couldn't go to my two brothers or my parents to tell them what had happened. I never told them what happened that day.

That night the older kids were on the sports field, playing with the young ones.

I was standing in the middle of the sports field in my own world. I didn't hear the kid coming towards me like a freight train, and I didn't have enough warning to get out of the way. By the time I realized that I was in danger it was too late to react. The boy had slammed into my side sending me flying over the ground. Next thing I knew I was rolling over and over down a small hill.

For a moment I was disorientated. I didn't know which way was which. I laid there for a minute as I got over the shock. I didn't even know that I was hurt until my second oldest brother had put something against my cheek. It burned real bad.

As tears ran down my face my two older brothers helped me up, and walked me over to the teachers who were in charge of the five to seven year old kids. Handing me over my oldest brother had asked that someone fixed me up.

I could only smile at my two brothers. They were two mother hens.

I was sent back to the dorm with a boy I didn't know. The next thing I remember was being in bed feeling my face which had a huge plaster stuck to it. I felt quite embarrassed about it for the rest of that week because the scrape was so large, and to make things worse, I had to explain it to my parents and then to Alan and Gordon, who thought that I looked really tough. I didn't feel to cool about that.

As the years went by I got more and more lonely, not mixing with many people. When I did however, I couldn't fit in with the group. I was bullied for years because of the way I was and still am today; quiet and reserved. When we lost our mother, who understood me, I tried to make myself as small as possible. I felt empty. Like something was missing. Something I couldn't find. I threw myself into my schoolwork and later my studies at university.

I watched my brothers go out with girls, go to clubs and have drinks, and meet up with old school friends; just enjoying their lives. For a while I had done the same with the few friends I had and felt safe with but, after a while they moved away and started their own lives. There came a day when I only had their phone numbers and a bunch of email addresses to keep in contact with them.

Then we started our new lives too; working for our father. When everyone had something to do, and I had free time, I would sit down and write a story or work on one of my books. Even then the lonely feeling would be there, haunting me. Like a long forgotten ghost from my past. If there's one thing I can't understand, it's that.

I have met new friends over the years. Online and wherever I have had the opportunity to with Dad's business. I go and visit some of them at times; I can message those I only know online. Still, when I'm left alone for just one moment my old friend comes and haunts me.

Today I felt tears prick my eyes as I watched one of my brothers leave the house to go have some fun with his friends. For just that moment I wished that I was different. That I have the ability to fit in and mix with people as easily as my brothers. I feel stupid, but all the same, I wish that my lonely ghost will stop haunting me for just one time in my life and let me be. Let me be me.

I wonder why I'm the way I am and if I'll ever be freed from the ghost that's been haunting me for so many years. The one who's haunting me even now.


End file.
